Call the Maitlands
by mywhouffle
Summary: "Can't you see, Artie? Wow, you really are thick. Even if this 'John Smith' chap isn't Clara's boyfriend yet... well, you can see he'd certainly like to be." For oldies: this is a repost of the story Thank You Clara's Boyfriend/Managing the Maitlands. For newbies: dozens of chapters of whouffle fluff & tumble: the classic cuteness of whouffle with the Maitlands' detective skills.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone,**

**So this is a repost of the whouffle fanfiction formerly known as "Thank You Clara's Boyfriend" and "Managing the Maitlands", which has been off FFnet for a while. This was due to my friends locating this highly embarrassing story I wrote when I was thirteen, and I had to take it down to prevent them reading it. Now, I deem it safe to repost. **

**I hope the old readers like it as much as they did the first time, and the new ones like it too.**

**P.S. There's probably about 6 000 000 mistakes, because, like I said, I was 13 when I wrote this.**

After Ice Warrior, they take to parking the TARDIS around the corner - Clara figures it might tip the Maitland's off if a big, blue box suddenly appeared out of thin air in their garden.

Today, however, they'd been to the '98 (as in 3098) Olympics for the Genetically Altered and Modified. The crowds had been quite something - being so small, Clara had been shoved around by the hordes of supporters, and twisted her ankle when knocked over by a burly Eurkranian Doshfrikshobble.

The Doctor had insisted they park closer to the house this time, so she didn't have to walk so far, which was silly, really, Clara thought.

"It's fine, look, we're behind a hedge. They won't see us. And isn't it a lovely hedge! With unusually good photosynthesis capabilities," the Doctor rattles.

Clara rolls her eyes. "Yes. Stop admiring your handiwork, I know you did something to it the first day we met."

The Doctor looks a tad put-out. "But my point is that I did something to it, and it STILL WORKS a couple of weeks later."

Clara laughs. "Bye, Doctor," she says, smiling.  
"No, I'll walk you back to the house, you're hurt," he tells her, but almost as more of a question than a statement.  
Clara shakes her head, however. "It's only ten feet, Doctor, I can manage. See you on Wednesday - the one in two days' time, not in a month or three weeks ago. Got it?"

"Most absolutely definitely," the Doctor replies confidently, giving his Clara a hug and kiss on the forehead before she smiles at him and turns, walking back to the house, waving over her shoulder at him.

The Doctor's really very glad he can just hop to Wednesday - he doesn't think he can wait two actual days to see her again. _His _Clara.

When Clara opens the door to the Maitland House, Angie and Artie are there waiting there, gazing at her expectantly.

"Hello," Artie says happily as she gives him a hug.

"Who was that?" Angie asks, pointing out the window to where the Doctor had been just moments before, a very suspicious smirk on her face.  
_Damn. _Clara had been hoping not to have to deal with questions about the Doctor, possibly ever. She's only known him a bit over a month, though he has very quickly become one of the most important things in her life, though she doesn't like the idea of acquainting him with the Maitlands, the other important part. His world is dangerous, and she loves _it_. But her job is to keep the kids safe, because she loves _them._

"Who was who?" Clara responds carefully, raising her eyebrows as if she really has no idea what they're talking about.

"That guy you were just with," Angie replies, her voice heavy with implications and her smirk growing.

"Oh," Clara says, acting as though she has only just understood who Angie meant. "That's just a friend of mine," she tells her noncommittally.

"Your friends don't normally come to our house," Artie points out innocently, clearly not onboard the same thought-train as his teenage sister.

Clara shrugs. "He was just taking me home."

Angie looks more and more interested by the second. "From where?"

Clara smiles, pats Artie on the head and manoeuvres her way through the ambush if curious children, heading upstairs. "Out," she tells Angie.

As soon as their nanny is gone, Artie asks his sister, "We've met some of Clara's friends before, and they don't normally kiss her on the forehead, do they?"

Angie grins widely. "No, they don't."

"So what's different about him, then?" her brother continues, clearly completely missing the path down which Angie's mind was going.

"Well," she says, mildly frustrated at Artie's lack of comprehension, "he's tall, handsome… I'd say he's Clara's boyfriend. Or wants to be."

Artie's eyes widen.

Angie laughs at him. "Don't look so shocked, she's 24."

"But…" Artie mutters. Then he frowns at Angie like he thinks she's trying to trick him.

The doorbell rings.

"I'll get it!" Artie shouts from down the hall.

In the kitchen, Clara checks her watch. It's 8:00am, but today is only Tuesday, a mere day since she last saw the doctor (though it already feels like too long). There's a distinct possibility he and the TARDIS could have undershot by a day, however, she supposes.

She listens for a few moments, but doesn't hear anything, Doctor-ish or otherwise. So she goes back to baking her soufflé, assuming it was a mail package or something.

"Artie!" Clara calls ten minutes later, "I've got another 'Amelia Williams' book for you from the library!"

She gets no response, however, and frowns. Normally Artie would be thundering down the stairs in order to grab the novel from her hands.

An inkling of worry flashes through Clara's mind. Come to think of it, she hasn't seen or heard Artie since he answered the door.

"Angie?" she calls up the stairs.

"What now, Clara, I'm talking to Nina!" the teen shouts back. _So that was where the phone had go to, _Clara thought.

"Have you seen Artie?"

"I can hear him laughing outside, he's probably playing with his footy ball or something," Angie tells her, not making an appearance from behind her closed bedroom door.

Curiously, Clara heads for the front door. Normally, Artie didn't play by himself - perhaps the knock at the door had been the children's father coming back for something? This was unlikely, however - even if he had, George wouldn't have time to stay and play kick-a-rounds.

Placing the Amelia Williams book, _The Lonely Keeper_ (about an immortal Roman centurion who guarded an 'impossible secret long after rest of his kind were gone') on the counter, Clara ventures out into the small yard.

Angie is right - Artie _is_ out there, playing with his football, but he is by no means alone. The person he passes the ball to flails about enough to take up the same space as three normal people.

Clara is half caught between smiling at the easy way Artie and the Doctor seem to be getting along (which doesn't surprise her, as they're both children, really) or to be slightly nervous at the fact that one of her charges has now clearly met her friend, which will almost definitely lead to more questions.

She stands there quietly in the doorway for a moment, with neither of the two boys noticing her. Clara smirks as the Doctor continually misses the ball, getting distracted by things such as oddly shaped clouds and uncoordinated pigeons. She wonders if all Timelords are this ADHD. When he focuses on the football though, he really is very good.

After about three minutes, Clara coughs gently, causing the Doctor to jump and miss the ball again, which in turn, like a chain reaction, causes Clara to laugh.

"Clara," he says happily, flashing her one of his trademark grins which Clara cannot help but instinctively return.

"You undershot, Chin, you're early by a day," she tells him, her eyebrows arching sternly so that just for a moment, he withers, actually believing her to be cross with him rather than quietly glad.

"Sorry," the Doctor mutters hurriedly. "I can go back and try again, the TARDIS has been acting all funny since you started calling her a 'Snogbox' -"

Clara cuts him off right there, placing a finger carefully on his lips, but looking at Artie. The kid hasn't been following the conversation very well (unsurprisingly, with the Doctor talking all timey wimey) but his eyes widen at the word 'snog', clearly something he understands.

Fearing he may have drastically misinterpreted the Doctor's comment, Clara quickly runs a series of explanations through her head: that her friend's car is called the 'Snogbox', though this might lead to more questions… Possibly that 'SNOG' is an acronym for 'Super-New Organic and Green' - they could pretend the Doctor owned a Smart-car. Though then Artie would probably want to see it, he did have the typical young-boy love of automobiles, dammit…

She is saved from explaining the TARDIS's nickname by the sudden smell of burning that fills the air.

"My soufflé!" Clara curses, turning and dashing back inside, the Doctor and Artie following behind her.

In the kitchen, Smoke issues in clouds from the oven, the pastry inside a blackened mess.

"This was definitely not my fault," Clara exclaims angrily, coughing as the swathes of black smoke attempt to smother her. "I only left it alone for ten minutes, _stupid soufflé,_"  
Not wanting to see Clara choke on the smoke, the Doctor dashes in front of her and rescues the oven himself, grabbing the china bowl the pastry bakes in with a hand protected from the heat by his ridiculously adorable purple jacket.  
When he pulls open the oven door, another smell suspiciously like a burning fuse permeates the air. The Doctor sets the charred wreck of a soufflé on the kitchen counter, before turning to Clara.  
"Your oven may or _may not _be completely and utterly broken," he informs her, "but as someone with the experience of the thirty-two cooking and kitchen maintenance classes up his sleeve that he took to work out how to use the TARDIS bakery, I'd say it's a little bit… well, _broken,_" he finishes lamely, beginning to reach inside his jacket. Clara knows he is about to grab his Sonic, so she quickly reaches out and grabs his wrist.  
"Uh-uh, Doctor," she mutters quietly.  
After half a second, it clicks in the Doctor's brain that she doesn't want Artie to see something as boldly alien-cross-James-Bond as his screwdriver.  
"Real, proper, boring fixing, then, huh?" he asks sadly, his head hanging just a bit, having simply assumed that she will want him to get the oven working again. She actually wouldn't have asked, it would seem a little _domestic_ of him, but since he's already thought of it…  
Clara nods. "Real, proper, boring fixing," she confirms.  
The Doctor is put out only for a moment, however – he soon twirls about to face Artie. "Ok, kid, do you know where your dad keeps his tools?"  
Artie nods enthusiastically, keen to help. He grabs the Doctor by the hand and drags him away, taking him to the small shed at the back of the garden.  
When they are gone, Clara opens the windows to allow the smoke to dissipate. She leans against the bench, biting her thumbnail as she waits for the boys to return.  
After a minute, Angie comes clumping down the stairs, holding her laptop in one hand and typing with the other.  
"Hey, Clara," she says, "do you know the difference between a colonization and a settlement? Only I'm trying to work out which one's best to use for my assignment on Australia,"  
"They're synonyms, really," the Doctor replies, entering with Artie and a toolbox, "though there are several differences if you want to get nit-picky. But this is only 2013, so it's not politically incorrect to use 'settlement' yet, though in a few years…"  
"Thanks," Angie mutters, having tuned out after 'synonyms'. It takes her several seconds, but eventually she realizes it wasn't Clara who spoke.  
Angie looks up from her laptop screen, taking in the scene below her – the Doctor standing quite close to Clara, really - much, much closer than the space deems necessary, and then hand resting gently on her shoulder probably isn't required either; Artie, happily holding a tool box in one hand and a football in the other.  
"Oh," she says, a smirk jumping onto her face despite the warning look in Clara's eyes. "Hi."  
The Doctor waves back at her a bit. "Hello," he replies. "You must be Angie. I'm the Doctor. Clara's told me all about you and your brother," he tells her, smiling. "Are you doing homework?"  
Angie nods, jumping quickly down the last few stairs. "Why are you called the Doctor? Don't you have a name?"  
"Angie-" Clara begins, but the Doctor cuts her off.  
"No, it's fine. I do have a name, actually, but it's a very boring one – _John Smith. _Ever so dull. Everyone just calls me the Doctor, for as long as I can remember – it's one of those nicknames you don't _quite _know how you got, you just… have it. I suppose it's because I like fixing things," he explains.  
_Perhaps you've put Clara's heart on your list, _Angie thinks to herself. If he really _is _Clara's boyfriend, she could have some proper fun teasing her nanny about him.  
Angie puts her computer down gently on the kitchen table. The Doctor's eyes dance over to the Word document that's open.  
"Erm… when's this due?" he asks Angie.  
"Today," she replies casually.  
He looks over it some more. "Australia was settled in the seventeen hundreds, not the eighteen hundreds; the Dutch got there first, not after; it was _James _Cook who discovered it, not _William _– I have no idea where you got that from…" the Doctor rattles off, combing quickly through Angie's work and correcting her errors as he goes.  
Clara watches the Doctor's face intently, and she can see he is _this close _to recommending they all go back and see Australia settled in the first place.  
"Doctor, one second," she says carefully, taking his hand and pulling him off to the side, just out of earshot of the kids, who watch them intently. "Angie, do your work," Clara instructs quickly.  
"Nope," the girl replies, too interested in observing the dynamic between her babysitter and this new guy to bother with her assignment.  
When the two in question get further down the hall, however, Artie tugs at Angie's sleeve, insisting in a whisper, "He so is not Clara's boyfriend."  
Angie raises her eyebrows at him. "What makes you think that?"  
"She hasn't kissed him," Artie says confidently, as if this is concrete proof.  
"That's because we're here, stupid," his sister rolls her eyes. "But have you seen the way they look at each other? Just like mum and dad used to."  
Artie nods a little. "Yes, but still… Clara can't have a boyfriend."  
"Why not?"  
"Um… because she's our Clara. Not his."  
Angie rolls her eyes again. "Well, he played footy with you, is presumably about to fix the oven and is trying to help me with my homework. If he's not already Clara's boyfriend, you can see he'd certainly _like _to be."

**There you go!**

**Now, unfortunately, even though I'm reposting this fic, it's unlikely new chapters will pop up. I still love DW, but fanfiction-wise, I've kind of migrated to writing for Castle (if you watch it and want my username, send a PM, and I'll give it to you).**

**Anyway, more chapters to come!**

**x.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello!**

**Have fun, my little whoufflepuffs.**

"Ok, Doctor," Clara says as soon as the kids are a reasonable distance away and she's dragged the Doctor out of their sight. "Listen. We _can't _even let the Maitland kids_ guess _there's something funny going on."

"_Is _there something funny going on?" he asks curiously.  
"Yes, you time travel, that's funny. But if they find out about it, they'll want to come along. And-"  
"That's bad," the Doctor finishes for her, nodding seriously. "Not safe for small people."  
She raises her eyebrows at him. "Yes, not even people your size small," he tells her.  
"Ok, well… please just try and seem reasonable normal. I'm not saying act, because I've seen you do that before and while I know you're very good, I don't want you do that. Just… no timey wimey talk, alright? No Sonic, and no TARDIS talk, ok? But otherwise just be… you. You're exactly fine like that."  
He nods. "Gotcha. Oh, and by the way, once the kids are at school – this _is_Wednesday, right, so they will be at school?"  
"It's a Tuesday, but never mind, go on," Clara laughs.  
"Well, I've heard about a _ghost, _in 1974. Too good to miss. Very interesting, ghosts. More interesting than most things," the Doctor says excitedly, his childish side making a grand, smiley reappearance.  
"Oh? And why is that then?" Clara asks, quirking an eyebrow.  
"Because a ghost… a ghost is never really a ghost, well, not in the human sense of a lost one's echo… They're always something more…"  
Clara can't help but hug him at how genuinely happy he looks, though unfortunately, Angie chooses that exact moment to walk in.  
"Oh, sorry," she says, though she's smirking, which does not _really _add credit to her apology. "It's just… the oven's smoking again… even though the soufflé is out… never mind,"  
She turns to leave, but Clara and the Doctor break apart and follow her anyway.  
The oven is indeed releasing a rather large amount of thick black smoke, off its own accord – this is definitely not the burning soufflé.  
"Right, time to make a start on the normal, boring fixing," the Doctor says, almost excitedly, as Artie passes him the tool kit, looking eager, while both Clara and Angie seem mildly apprehensive.  
"Um, Clara," Angie says, as the two boys start poking tools around the oven.  
"Eh?" Clara responds, not taking her eyes off the Doctor. While she has no doubt he has the skills to mend if not drastically improve the Maitland's oven, there is an almost equal chance he will totally destroy it. But then, she supposes, it's already pretty busted up anyway.  
"It's 8:30. I should probably get to school… Can you drive me?" Angie asks. Clara hesitates for a moment, not sure if Artie will be fine with being left with someone who is practically a stranger.  
"I'll be fine, Clara," he tells her, nodding vigorously when she asks, "I want to watch the Doctor fix the oven, and my schools is just down the road a bit – I don't have to leave for another half an hour or so."  
Somewhat reluctantly, Clara concedes to his point. It's not as if the Doctor will let any harm come to Artie, but she is mildly unsure as to the intelligence of the idea of leaving two unattended children in the house.  
"Come on, Clara!" Angie calls as she heads out the front door, leaving her nanny with no choice but to smile at the two boys and follow her teenage charge outside.

Almost as soon as Clara has clicked on her seatbelt and backed out onto the street, Angie begins talking.  
"_Is _he your boyfriend, though, Clara?" she asks, attempting innocent, but just coming across as evilness-in-waiting.  
Clara can immediately tell that no matter what answer she gives, Angie will construe it to meet with her own interpretation of her and the Doctor's relationship, but it's worth a shot. "No," she replies finally.  
"Really? How come he was at our house then?" Angie says, eyebrows climbing.  
"Adults don't have to be dating other adults in order to go over to their houses, you know," Clara tells her, almost smirking now. "He was only picking me up."  
"To go where?"  
"Out," Clara says again, refraining from adding, _to the 1970's to see a ghost…_  
"_Out _isn't a place, Clara! You went _out _yesterday too. Where exactly is _out_?" Angie asks suspiciously.  
"Places, Angie." To divert the teen's attention, Clara starts listing locations she and the Doctor have been, though slightly altered to fit within Angie's idea of reality: no aliens. "Ice skating," – on the Common Federation Planetary Luxury Station – "to a concert," – sung by the oppressed god-worshipers of Akhaten – "a Water World," – in 1983 on a submarine, but Clara knew if she even said something like _Nautical Museum _Angie wouldn't believe her: Clara wasn't big on boats and so forth – "we've been to a couple of movies," – that won't be made for another eighty years – "just stuff like that."  
"Those _sound _like dates to me," Angie points out.  
"You seem to have been in a perpetual state of smirking recently," Clara observes, but Angie ignores her.  
"Back to my first point, though – if he's not your boyfriend, why was he at our house?"  
Clara frowns. "I already told you. People can go to other people's houses when they want to. There are not really _rules_ about it. Unless you're breaking and entering. There are rules about that. I've had friends over before."  
"Not _normally. _You told me ages ago when I asked that you didn't feel comfortable having people over, because it's not your house, its dads, even though you live here."  
"Yes, but we're not going to spend the day at the house, that would be boring. He just showed up a bit early, that's all – he wasn't supposed to show up until after you and Artie were gone," – and _tomorrow _– "I don't stay at home all day when you kids go to school, you know," Clara tells her.  
This idea hadn't really occurred to Angie, and then she remembers why. "You_used _to stay at home nearly all the time," she reminds her nanny.  
"Not anymore," Clara says, pulling over. "Ok, out. We're here,"  
Angie doesn't want to go to school – she'd much rather stay here and interrogate Clara until she caves in and finally admits to what even Artie (the obtuse, silly, ten-year-old _boy_ Artie) is starting to be able to see.  
Nevertheless, she gets out of the car and walks over to her friend Nina who is waiting at the gate for her. Angie waves at Clara as the car speeds away. She smirks – Clara is very keen to get back to the house, it seems.  
"What took you so long?" Nina asks her.  
"Oh, nothing. Clara's boyfriend was just helping me with my assignment."  
"Clara has a _boyfriend_?" Nina says, looking surprised.  
"My god, you're as bad as Artie."  
"No, no, I mean, it's not funny at all… It's just – I'd never really thought about your nanny going out with someone," her friend clarifies.  
"Yeah, neither had I," Angie replies. "But if they're not together yet, they very soon will be."  
And even Nina can't tell if that's just foresight or a plan on Angie's part.

**I know this is a mere repost, but please do review/comment anyway. I am actually considering updating at the end of this, despite my atrocious ten month hiatus.**

**x. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys!**

**Hope you're still enjoying the story. Again, I apologise for what are probably numerous punctuation and factual errors.**

Artie checks his watch. The Doctor's head has been inside the oven for nearly ten minutes now, along with his hand, which is poking around with a spanner, screwdriver (which he had frowned at and called boring when Artie had given in to him) and a torch.

A little while ago, Artie had started to get bored, so the Doctor had been making up space-alien stories to tell him. They featured the Doctor doing a lot of talking and running around, and sometimes Clara was in them too. They were mostly funny and a little bit silly and wondrous.  
"Can you make up some scary ones?" Artie asks what he can see of the Doctor that's not blocked by the stove.  
"Sure. 'Course I can. But you're not going to tell on me to Clara if you get nightmares, are you?" he replies, his voice slightly echo-y from being inside a tin box.  
Artie smiles. "Absolutely not. Besides, I'm ten now, I don't get nightmares. Nightmares are for babies."  
"Oi," the Doctor tells him. "Nightmares get to everyone. I still get them, all the time. There's nothing 'baby' about them, Artie. Bad dreams are just your mind's way of dealing with nasty memories."  
Artie decides he likes the Doctor (he's still not sure if the man is Clara's boyfriend or not – Angie might have being trying to trick him, but it doesn't seem like it anymore), and stops trying to impress him. "Ok," he says. "I still have nightmares. But only _sometimes. _And I promise I won't get them from your space-alien made-up stories."  
"Yes, that's right," the Doctor agrees. "They are most absolutely definitely completely made-up."  
Artie listens intently as the Doctor tells him of a strange, alien place called 'Akhaten', and an adventure he pretends he and Clara had there. It's funny, but the way that the Doctor tells it makes it sound as if Clara is the best and most perfect person to have travel with you. Artie has to stop him, though, when the Doctor starts one about them being stuck in a submarine, back in time.  
"Don't do that one, it's not right," he tells the Doctor. "Clara doesn't like tight spaces and most definitely not ones 700 metres underwater. Don't make Clara go there, please?"  
"She's claustrophobic?" the Doctor says. "I didn't know that." He mentally notes it down. To try not to take Clara anywhere that might make her feel constricted. Ever. Not his Clara – she has to feel safe, as much as she can wherever they go, or she might leave him. And he doesn't ever, ever want that.  
"I don't know what that word means, but it's probably 'afraid of tight spaces'… how come you didn't know? I thought you had to know everything about her to be her boyfri-"  
He's cut off but the sound of keys clinking in the door as Clara returns.  
The Doctor jumps at the noise, banging his head on the inside of the oven.  
"Ow," he mutters, as Clara walks in.  
"You ok?" she asks him in an amused tone.  
"Sort of," the Doctor says. "On the upside, I have located the problem with your oven. On the downside, I found it my knocking my head into it, and now it's leaking some rather nasty smelling black… _stuff _onto my bowtie, which is not cool."  
Clara smiles, grabs his hand, and pulls him out of the oven. His normally buoyant quiff of dark brown hair looks slightly sad and subdued as it is oppressed by the copious quantities of dark grease. She rolls her eyes.  
"The bathroom is upstairs," she tells him, as he tastes some of the grease of his finger and shivers in disgust. "Go wash it off quickly, I've got to take Artie to school in a few minutes. C'mon, Doctor, I'll show you the sink."  
As she drags the quietly complaining Doctor up the narrow staircase, Artie is left standing in the kitchen alone, still smiling at how funny the Doctor looked, all covered in oven fuel.  
He waits patiently for Clara, glancing around the kitchen, and notices a small silver key on the floor. It's oddly pretty, so he picks it up and slips it into his pocket. It's probably from his dad's keychain. He'll have to remember to give it back to his father when he gets home this afternoon.  
After five minutes, Clara and the Doctor come back downstairs, her looking amused, him looking disgruntled.  
He is tugging in annoyance at the close fitting white man's shirt that he is now wearing over the top of his suit pants, in place of his regular button up shirt and tails. Artie recognises it as the shirt his dad had given Clara to use as a smock when she helped Artie paint (not that he liked painting anymore: while he enjoyed the messiness factor, the actual _cleaning up _cancelled it out) so that she didn't have to get any of her own clothes dirty - when Artie was into painting, he _had _flicked paint around _quite a lot_. This had been only a few weeks after their mother had died, when it hadn't mattered to Artie what he did so long as it wasn't crying. Or missing mum. The shirt had a splash of dark blue paint on the left shoulder, but was otherwise clean.  
"It's not _cool_," he hears the Doctor grumble.  
"It's fine, Doctor," Clara tells him.  
"No, it's not, it's too modern… and white… and sticky-clingy. That's not good."  
"It's fine," she repeats, her stern face almost flicking on. Artie feels he should warn the Doctor about Clara's stern face, though he probably already knows seeing as he's Clara's boyfri-  
Clara interrupts his chain of thought with, "Are you ready to go?"  
Artie nods happily. "Yeah," he tells her, picking up his school bag and slinging it over his shoulder.  
"Ok, Doctor, I'll be back in twenty minutes," Clara tells 'John Smith'.  
"Oh, no, I'd like to come," he replies. "Besides," he whispers to Artie, "I don't think your oven likes me. Probably best not be left alone with it."  
Artie laughs, but Clara frowns. "Are you sure, Doctor? It'll be just walking, nothing interesting."  
"Oh, yes, I'm sure. I can even get a real shirt on if you let me go back to the-"  
"How bout no?" Clara finishes for him. It takes him a second, but eventually the Doctor works out that even Artie might find it a tad suspicious if he disappears for a second and returns with brand new (if not identical) clothes from no apparent source.  
"Well, anyway, I'm fine with walking. It's like running, but less interesting," he says.  
In five minutes, they've locked up the house and are walking down the footpath in the direction of Artie's primary school.  
It feels oddly domestic, thinks Clara, with Artie chattering away between them as they pace along. Very unlike some of her outings with the Doctor – today, there is nothing chasing them, or trying to harm them. Normally, in situations like this, she's noticed (ones where no aliens are hunting them or they're trying to stop aliens _from_ being hunted) that the Doctor will glance around rather a lot, as if eagerly waiting for some issue to develop. Not today, however, which is unusual. Today, he seems content to talk to Artie about interesting features of trains and airplanes, and of how _that particular_type of butterfly lands on specific flowers to signal danger, or how that bee's flying pattern can tell a story. Artie seems to love listening to him talk as the Doctor loves talking.

After ten minutes, they reach his Primary School, and walk him up to the gate.  
"Have a good day, Artie," Clara tells him, giving him a hug before waving him off to the school gate.  
"Bye, Clara!" he calls over his shoulder happily. "Bye, Clara's b -"  
"Artie!" one of his friends calls at him, interrupting his farewell as the other boy throws him a football ball. "Artie!"  
So Artie just waves and watches Clara and the Doctor as they start to walk away. "Who's that with your nanny?" his friend, Mike, asks. "I haven't seen him before. Is he your cousin?"  
"No," Artie tells him. "That's Clara's boyfriend, Angie says."  
"She's probably tricking you," Mike reasons. "That sort of thing's silly."  
"I don't think Angie's lying. I've heard Clara talking about him a bit before, but she only called him 'her friend'. I thought he was going to leave when the oven broken, and then again when I had to come to school, but he just keeps waiting around like the Centurion in the Amelia William's book I'm re-reading. Oh, and guess what?"  
"What?" Mike asks, more interested now the centurion guard of the mysterious 'Pandorica Prison' had been mentioned. He wanted to be a centurion when he grew up, he'd decided.  
"Her boyfriend helped me practice football and re-inflated my football for me, so now we can play footy at lunch!" Artie tells him triumphantly.

Clara and the Doctor walk calmly away from the school until they round the corner, when the Doctor grabs her hand and pulls her into a run.  
Clara thinks how fun it is to have to wind blow through her hair as she anticipates another adventure… in 1974… with a 'ghost that isn't a ghost'…  
The Doctor thinks about how small and warm Clara's hand is in his own, and how he can't wait to take her to see amazing things in all of time and space, and watch her face light up in awe of everything with that smile that he loves…  
After a few minutes, they reach the small alcove where he parked the TARDIS. "I think I'm always going to leave her here, from now on," the Doctor tells her, reaching into his pocket for the key. "It's a nice, shady place that's out of sight from the Maitland's, but not too far… Yes, indeed, it is as almost as if this spot were made for the old girl."  
A minute later, he's still fishing around in his trouser pockets for the key. "Oh," he remembers, "it'll be in my jacket. It'll probably be a good idea to get my Sonic, too, I'd forgotten about that…"  
So they head back into the Maitland house and collect his jacket, Sonic, shirt, waistcoat (Clara had never realised before just how many layers he had on, normally) and beloved bowtie.  
After several minutes of searching, however, they still cannot find the TARDIS key. "Perhaps you dropped it in the kitchen when you were fiddling with the oven?" Clara suggests.  
"Ah, yes, probably. Notorious for dropping things, am I. Did you know there's now a tradition in Oustakiphobistain 6511 to drop biscuits before eating them because of me? Yes, they started worshipping me as a god, because I am quite tall – they're all below two and a half feet, the people of O-6511 – and said they would bring me whatever I desired. Naturally, I asked for an endless supply of Jammie Dodgers, some spare bowties and a fez. But when I finally got around to eating one of the biscuits, I dropped it rather spectacularly. I jumped forward one hundred years in the TARDIS, after that, and accidentally fulfilled the prophecy of my return and discovered that it was a long-held custom to fumble Jammie Dodgers. I managed to eat one without dropping it the next time, which made them question their entire existence…" the Doctor rattles happily as they go back downstairs, Clara following him with the small smile that always graces her face when he talks about his adventures.  
"… And once," he's telling her when they reach the kitchen, "I went to Flig-Pomp, named after the alien race that inhabits it – not as nice as they sound – and actually _did _lose my TARDIS key. They demanded I trade my friend, Donna, for the return of the key. I got around it, of course… Do you know, I'd nearly forgotten about that… quite a few years ago now…" the Doctor trails off, looking sad for a moment. _Because she's forgotten about it, too. _And it was supposed to be up to him to remember those times for both of them.  
"Donna who?" Clara asks quickly, to get his mind off whatever is causing him pain.  
"Donna Noble. Very smart, very funny. Was a temp, in Chiswick…" he tells her.  
"Not – not _Donna Noble, _as in the woman who won the lottery a couple of years ago?"  
"The very same," he smiles.  
"My aunt used to know her," Clara says. "I didn't know she travelled with you."  
"Neither does she," he says simply and quietly. His eyes look so impossibly far away, so distant and sorrowful, that Clara doesn't know what else to do but hug him. After half a heartbeat, he hugs her back. She doesn't really know what he means, about Donna not knowing, but she's sure he'll tell her someday, if he's ever ready.  
After perhaps even longer than a minute, Clara pulls away. She could have stayed like that, hugging the Doctor, for maybe a little longer than forever, but they do need to get going.  
"Your key," she says quickly, and they resume the search.  
Five minutes pass before something occurs to Clara. "Doctor, earlier, when we were coming down the stairs, I saw Artie putting something in his pocket… you don't think that maybe it was-"  
He groans. "The TARDIS key. Probably thought he'd dropped it, or you or his dad – I can't imagine him stealing it on purpose…"  
"He wouldn't," Clara assures him. "I'll get it back from him this afternoon. But, no matter… we've got a ghost to see, eh?"  
The Doctor hangs his head in anticipation of disappointing Clara, something he never wants to do. He'd do anything to make her smile, and just as much to make sure she never, ever has to frown. "No, we can't," he says.  
"Are you telling me," Clara mutters slowly, "that your _incredible, amazing, bigger-on-the-inside blue box _does not have a spare key?"  
"Oh, no, it has several," he assures her.  
"Well, then, what's the problem?"  
"They're all locked inside. But can I tell her you called her 'incredible' and 'amazing'? She might like that."  
"Tell her what you want, so long as it makes your Snogbox let us in," she dismisses.  
The Doctor shuffles around a bit. "She won't let us in. After 1300 years of time and space and you think I'm going to configure my ship to let people in without a key?"  
"No, of course not – but surely she'll let _you_ in?"  
"Not even me. Well, she used to open up when I snapped my fingers, for a while there. But when I was traveling with my friend, Amelia, and her husband, Rory, we encountered these creatures called the 'Flesh' – exact duplicates of humans that sometimes even the TARDIS couldn't tell from the original. Anyway, sometimes the Flesh could go wrong, could _be _wrong, and well… I had to protect the TARDIS from that. So I upgraded her security system. I'm telling you, Clara, she won't let us in."  
Clara frowns. "Well, I guess that's that then," she says  
She doesn't look _too unbearably _upset, which is good, thinks the Doctor. He's not sure he could manage Clara being upset.  
But even a _bit _upset is quite bad. "We can go back to Artie's school – get the key off him…" he suggests.  
Clara's already shaking her head, however. "We're not dragging the kid out of class because you were too silly to bring a spare key. Nope, Chin Boy, you're stuck here with me for the day."  
She expects him to frown or to whine or to complain how "he'll be bored in ten minutes". But he doesn't. He just smiles at her and says, "Well, then, Clara Oswald, what do you want to do?"  
Clara gazes at him for a second, making up her mind. "Help me make another soufflé?"  
"Absolutely."  
The Doctor thinks Clara looks surprised when he doesn't say anything. He can almost see what she was thinking – that he'd get bored. Of course, that's happened before. When he gets left in a place that reeks of domestic boringness, he normally goes crazy. But not today. After all, an adventure is not what you do, but who you spend it with. And he'd do anything to have the day with her.  
Of course, that's not to say he _wouldn't _appreciate something interesting happening. Are soufflés known to attract rare species of hungry, problematic aliens?

**See you soon! Don't forget to comment/review if you did like it, or even if you didn't.**


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